


The Cask of Amontillado

by nothingamonth



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Reads Erotica, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 03:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8384683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingamonth/pseuds/nothingamonth
Summary: On Halloween of 1939, Bucky tries to read Steve "The Cask of Amontillado," but the idea of being locked in a vault is too frightening for Steve.  It's only over decades that Steve realizes how fitting the story is to both of their lives, though he hopes for a happier ending.





	

Even for Brooklyn, it was unseasonably cold on Halloween, 1939. Sleet was coming down hard, and the trick-or-treaters had stopped roaming the streets long ago. Steve Rogers huddled under multiple blankets, his sketchbook in his hands. Bucky Barnes sat next to him with a few blankets of his own, his nose buried in a book. Underneath the covers, their cold toes touched.

The book Bucky was reading was a yellowing anthology of Edgar Allan Poe’s work. Steve was familiar with the author’s adventure stories, but avoided his horror stories—not because he got scared, of course, but who wants to read about murderers and ghosts? 

“Hey, Stevie, listen to this—‘ _I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast—‘”_

“Stop,” Steve interrupted. The thought of being entombed in a wall—in _anything_ —made his chest hurt. He turned back to his sketch and started drawing a raven on Bucky’s shoulder. It seemed fitting.

“What, scared?” Bucky leaned over the top of his book and waggled his brows, and Steve rolled his eyes in response.

“No, don’t be stupid!” A pillow collided squarely with Bucky’s face.

Bucky laughed and stuffed the pillow behind his back. “Want me to read you _The Raven_ instead?”

“Is it scary?”

“It’s a poem, Steve.” 

Steve gave him a skeptical look, but nodded. 

Bucky cleared his throat. “ _Once upon a midnight dreary…_ ”

* * *

 

Bucky fell, and Steve found himself on the Valkyrie with enough explosives on board to take out the entire Eastern seaboard.

Bucky fell, and Steve was going to die.

He remembered the many quiet evenings they had spent together, reading or sketching or listening to the radio. He wished now that he had let Bucky continue reading that story. It didn’t matter if it was scary or not. Steve just wanted to hear his _voice_.

He steered the plane towards the Arctic Circle and angled the nose down.

The water was so cold it took his breath away.

* * *

 

_A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated, I trembled._

* * *

 

“I remembered him!” the Asset screamed. His distress allowed his handlers to get him into the Chair. They were lowering the machine and he wailed, “But I _remembered_ him!”

The foul-tasting mouth guard was shoved between his teeth.

_His name is Steve!_

* * *

 

_I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamourer grew still._

* * *

 

It was hard to get in the Halloween spirit in the jungle. The Wakandans certainly didn’t celebrate. Steve kind of missed the jack-o’-lanterns and tacky decorations that Tony insisted upon every year. Steve watched Bucky try to read with only one hand. He gripped the paperback between his little finger and thumb and then set it down to flip the page. He didn’t seem particularly annoyed by it, though it would have driven Steve half-mad. He wasn’t patient enough for that.

From the other couch, Steve asked, “What are you reading?”

Bucky flashed him the cover of the book. It was neither a title nor author that he recognized, not that that meant a great deal. Steve looked back down at his sketchbook. He’d drawn a vague figure of Bucky reading with thumbnails of his face, his hand. With a sigh, he set both his pencil and the book down.

“Hey, how about you read to me?”

Bucky looked over at him and arched a brow. 

“I’ll hold the book,” Steve offered, grinning.

The brunet sighed through his nose, staring into the pages of the book before he scooted over and patted the space beside him with the book. Steve plopped down in the spot, pressing his thigh against Bucky’s knee. He was relieved when the other man didn’t draw back.

“What’s it about?” Steve asked, taking the book from him.

“Vampires,” Bucky replied tersely, though a ghost of a smile played around his lips.

A furrow appeared between Steve’s brows. He’d fought goddamned space aliens, but some things still spooked him. “Is it scary?”

Bucky actually barked with laughter, a sound that made Steve’s toes curl in his socks.

“Well, is it?” he asked, moving slightly closer.

The other man wrapped his arm around Steve’s shoulders and pulled him against his chest. “Just open the book, Stevie,” he said softly. The blond did as he was told and opened the book to where Bucky had dog-eared the page. At first, Steve was so lost in the sound of Bucky’s inflectionless purr of a voice that he didn’t realize what he was saying. But as words like “hardening member” and “quivering hole” became more and more frequent, Steve blushed to the tips of his ears.

“Bucky!” He craned his neck to see the other man struggling so hard not to laugh that tears tracked down his face.

Steve cracked a smile. “Well, don’t stop. This might be going somewhere.”

* * *

 

_I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!_

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tumblr: stuckypuddles.tumblr.com. This is for the Edgar Allen Poe Challenge. The quotes from "The Cask of Amontillado" are public domain.


End file.
